The Adult Child
by trapt-tage
Summary: Oneshot. Satoshi acknowleges that his life is hard, but he also admits that there is a certain Niwa that might have it harder.


Disclaimer: I don't own DNAngel.

AN: Pointless, Plotless, and not really what I wanted, but hey I wrote it, so might as well post it. Someone will get it.

* * *

Living - just living - is a hard task in itself. I know many that have 'easy' lives, and yet, I could recount the tales from history of so many more than I will ever know, that never even got to live that normal life to its full extent. There were so many that were hurt, and so many that were killed, and so many who had no childhood, but that never lived to see adulthood.

It was this foolish war that caused all of their lived to run down the same track of destruction and despair as the generation before them. No one could very well stop it, not when it was bred straight into their DNA. And it's times like these - times when I sit and think over how hard life really is and has been - that I drop my biases. It can hardly be said that I'll often pity a Niwa before myself, but thinking about this stupid feud and the chore of living…I sometimes forget that I should hate him, and I sometimes realize how the same we are, if not how different.

I am not a lucky person. I do, in fact enjoy the sunshine. But when I step outside my luck often treats me to downpours. Why? Because it's just my luck. I file all papers meticulously, not only because I'm a very organized person, but because term papers seem to have a time limit that they can sit on the coffee table before my luck magically 'misplaces' them. It's just my luck (or lack thereof, as it may be).

I'm not a very carefree person. If I'm not worrying about when Dark will strike, I'm worrying about where. If I'm not running over the plans for his capture all afternoon, I'm running over how I'm going to deal with losing yet another heirloom of my family's. Most people would say that I don't care about anything at all. I don't go to parties; I don't try to be social; I don't even hold friendly conversations with my class mates. What, in their eyes, have I to care about at all? …Everything _but _being social, apparently. Caring about the important over the trivial just comes with the territory.

I don't have an easy life. I have Krad instead. I am a Hikari, instead. I was forced head first into a blood war, instead. Maybe I will always think my life is hard, no matter what my situation is, but I'm still pretty sure that these aren't problems that most people have to deal with. Just me. By myself.

And yet, this unlucky, careful, hard-living fourteen year old harbors pity. Yes, I not only acknowledge my enemy, but I pity him as well. Ever since early childhood, I was raised to think as an adult would. Being a child was so very easy for me, because I was told by family - and after that, by Hiwatari - that anything less than adult behavior was unacceptable, and yet, in society, they didn't expect as much of me as I was taught to give. I was taught to make adult decisions, take adult responsibility, and face adult consequences. I've been an adult all my life, there was no threshold I had to cross when I turned fourteen, there was no new set of responsibilities I would have to learn, I was simply expected to still think maturely.

And it is this that I pity the Niwa for. He wasn't raised to be as uncaring as I, nor was he raised to be an adult from birth. In fact, that is the exact opposite of what he is. He is the most caring and big-hearted of people that I have ever met, and even for me he smiles and worries. He is still very much a child, as well. He still gives a look of dumb confusion when he doesn't know the answer, and he still gets irrationally emotional or moody. All in all, he'd be a perfect example of an average teenager…if he wasn't a Niwa.

Now though, he is expected to take on a much more serious side regarding his responsibilities, and to now 'work' at night, not just play, as children do. But his mother still treats him younger than he actually is. She still cuts him breaks, and gives him slack. So how much is really expected of him? Was he to become a full-fledged 'adult' upon his fourteenth birthday, as the Niwa clan has been known to do in the past, or is he still a mere kid, sent out to do more than he is prepared for?

I already see the flaws in this 'everything will turn out okay' ideology that perhaps his parents implemented, and I can already tell that the Niwa boy is going to be floundering in living his own life. He has decided that he is going to be an adult, but still also still remain a child at the same time. He is going to commit adult actions, like all of the stunts of theft, and he is going to try to prevent or resolve any trouble that his other half is going to, or already has, created. Yes, that demonstrates adult behavior alright, but like I said, he still has a childish side.

He still thinks that he can end this battle with no blood shed, and with an ending full of apple pie smiles and cheery laugher and vows of everlasting friendship. He still thinks that he can be my friend, and that he can get close to me without causing any trouble or upset. He thinks that he can be the ultimate optimist, and never cease to smile, even when the bright side his looking on isn't actually a valid option. But what he doesn't realize is that the theft is an act of war, and that housing and defending Dark Mousy is acknowledging that he is the enemy of the Hikaris. He doesn't want to go to war, but like any soldier that's been drafted; he doesn't realize that he already has.

I don't know if he is confused, or if he just refuses to see that this isn't a petty affair, but for God's sake, even _I_ can say that my up bringing was better than his, and I never addressed any parent I ever had by any name other than their last. Maybe it's the line society drew; the line that makes fifteen year olds think casual sex is acceptable of them when they can't even be expected to hand in a school assignment on time. One activity is considered 'adults only' and the other is the behavior of children. So what is really the worst scenario: Never growing up, growing up much to fast, or not being sure whether you've grown up or not?


End file.
